Amazon Feedback Comments: Tips for Deciphering Them

Most sellers realize that poor star ratings can jeopardize Buy Box position and, in some cases, create friction with Amazon.com, Inc. (“Amazon”). But what about the comments that go along with the star rating? Aside from damaging the merchant’s ego, do they have any lasting impact? If so, what should sellers do to systematically analyze and decipher them?

In this post, we’ll take a look at Amazon feedback comments and what to do about them (especially bad ones).

Feedback Comments Add Context to Star Ratings

Step into the buyer’s perspective for a moment. Let’s say you need to make a last-minute purchase, so you pull out your smartphone, pop open the Amazon app and do a quick search. To your absolute dismay, the item isn’t available with Prime two-day shipping. In fact, there’s only one merchant currently selling that particular product. Unfortunately, you simply can’t afford to wait beyond the two-day period. Should you take time from your busy day and actually “go shopping”? Or should you take a chance on this seller’s ability to provide on-time fulfillment?

Luckily for you, the seller has hundreds of five-star ratings, many of which contain glowing comments from happy customers. After reviewing several feedbacks, you notice some shoppers have noted that the seller goes above and beyond to ensure prompt delivery. Being the skeptic that you are, you also check for any negative feedbacks. Although a few customers have provided negative or neutral feedback, you can tell (based on their comments) that they’re the type of customer who is not easily pleased. (As a seller, you’ve had a few of those over the years!)

Within minutes, you’re able to make an informed buying decision – thanks, in large part, to the candid feedback comments. This would certainly be a different story had you only relied on the star rating itself.

This simple example makes it clear why Amazon requires customers to leave comments when they go to leave a star rating. Feedback comments are good for Amazon’s community of buyers, they’re good for sellers (especially for those interested in improving satisfaction) and, of course, they’re good for Amazon, too.

Monitoring Negative Ratings (without Losing Your Mind)

As you scale your Amazon business, manually checking for new feedback becomes impossible. If you’re averaging 1,000 transactions per month and manually soliciting, you might reasonably expect to receive 10 or 20 feedbacks (suggestion: use FeedbackFive to increase your feedback volume). At this volume, you’ll need to log in to your Seller Central feedback manager every single day – including weekends – just to stay on top of your seller reputation. Who has time for that? Not you, that’s who.

Here’s the good news: FeedbackFive monitors your Amazon feedback reputation 24-7. If a customer leaves a nasty complaint about you, FeedbackFive will promptly send you an email and/or text message.

Within a few moments, you’ve learned of the customer’s dissatisfaction rather than allowing precious time to pass. Armed with this information, you can then reach out to the buyer and make the situation right. The sooner you follow up with the unhappy buyer, the more likely feedback removal becomes.

Tick…tick…tick!

Analyzing Your Comments for Trends

As your seller reputation advances into the hundreds or thousands of feedbacks, your dataset becomes increasingly valuable to your business. FeedbackFive helps you extract the most value from your seller reputation.

With a single click, you can export your feedback history (including the comments) to CSV format.

Our prebuilt feedback views make it easy to quickly export:

All feedback

Negative feedback only

Positive feedback only

Are customers saying negative things about a specific SKU? Perhaps customers who order on Christmas day have unrealistic shipping expectations? With FeedbackFive, you’re in control of your data. Identify trends, see the big picture and leverage customer comments to your advantage.

Amazon Feedback Comments Can Improve Your Game

Don’t let another feedback comment come in without a better monitoring and analysis workflow. Sign up for FeedbackFive today and put our software to work. Monitor every feedback comment, capture each rating and make more informed eCommerce decisions.

As the Business Development Manager for eComEngine, Colleen Quattlebaum is committed to helping Amazon Sellers succeed. Colleen reviews the latest market trends and strategizes on how to improve eComEngine’s offerings, so she can pass that insight and value on to Amazon merchants.

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